Le Pen in Lebanon controversy over headscarf refusal

France's far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen capped her visit to Lebanon with controversy on Tuesday when she refused to wear a headscarf to meet the country's top Sunni Muslim cleric.

On her last day in the Mediterranean country, Le Pen arrived at Sheikh Abdellatif Deryan's office in Beirut and was offered a white shawl to cover her blonde hair.

The National Front candidate promptly refused and made a brief statement to journalists before leaving.

"The highest Sunni authority in the world had not had this requirement, so I have no reason to," Le Pen said, referring to her 2015 visit to Al-Azhar, the prestigious Egyptian institution of Sunni Islamic learning.